05/29/2024 – 9:11
Unemployment in Brazil fell to 7.5% in the quarter ended in April, according to data from the Continuous National Household Sample Survey (Pnad Contínua) released this Wednesday, 19th, by IBGE. This is the lowest unemployment rate for the period since 2014 (7.2%).
The decline was just 0.1 percentage point compared to the quarter from November to January 2024 (7.6%). Compared to the same moving quarter of 2023 (8.5%), the drop was 1 percentage point.
The result was better than expected. The median forecast in a Reuters survey was that the rate would be 7.7% in the period.
For Adriana Beringuy, coordinator of Household Surveys at IBGE, the result points to “the maintenance of the downward trend of this indicator, which has been observed since 2023”.
O number of unemployed it stood at 8.2 million, without significant variation in the quarterly comparison, but with a reduction of 9.7% (882 thousand fewer unemployed people) compared to the same moving quarter of 2023.
Already the employed population totaled 100.8 million, with no statistically significant change in the quarter, but with an increase of 2.8% (2.8 million more people) in the year.
Record number of workers with and without a formal contract
The number of workers with a formal contract reached 38.188 million, a record in the historical series of the survey, which began in 2012. Likewise, the number of workers without a formal contract was also a record, reaching 13.5 million.
The number of self-employed workers (25.5 million people) remained stable, as did the number of employers (4.2 million people) and the number of domestic workers (5.9 million people).
Mass of income breaks new record
The average income in April was R$3,151, with no significant variation in the quarter and an increase of 4.7% in the annual comparison. As a result, the mass of income, which is the sum of the remunerations of all workers in the country, reached R$313.1 billion, a new record in the historical series, with an increase of 7.9% compared to the same period in 2023.
“The income mass remained at a high level, either because there was a positive variation in the employed population in some segments, or due to the maintenance of the average income value. With emphasis, in this specific quarter, on the increase in the income of employees in the private sector with a formal employment contract”, highlighted the IBGE researcher.
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